Your religion was written by a scifi author.Come on!

[deleted]

I guess the difference is that Scientology was just made up on the fly by one person. Others were cobbled together piecemeal over centuries by groups of "wise" men (and very, very rare women). That does give the others an internal consistency that this one lacks - though not much. How close is the Christianity of St Peters, Rome, to that of Bishop John Spong, say? But Scientology is put together so badly, it's funny.

All that is visible must grow beyond itself...
http://www.cafepress.co.uk/ahua/8761658

Belief in god is a choice and I will not argue with you for or against it.

However; the biggest difference is simple: Christianity has a much longer history with a vague past. At the very least it can be said that any version of proof that it might offer is lost in the past and that choosing to believe requires faith.

To put it simply if you are going to choose something to have faith in than choosing something vaguely unprovable at least makes sense from a traditional point of view.

It's hard to argue with something written a long time ago that has enough room for interpretation within its belief system that even the choice to not believe can be used as a counterpoint. It goes like this: (assuming for a moment you believe in god) If god gave us the choice to believe (called faith) or the choice to not believe (without it we have no free will) than the world must exist in a form that can not prove his existence and which is capable of sustaining itself without his visible interaction (thus all of science is correct; and the choice to believe in god would be the choice to believe what set that in motion and the choice to not believe is a valid exercise of your free will to not believe)

So crazy theories and rhetoric aside, christianity really doesn't need to contradict science; and it includes a set of moral values which most people (whether you believe or not) would typically not argue against (things like, don't kill, don't steal, etc)

Of all the religions in the world it's one of the hardest to actually disprove (if fully understood; its easy to disprove if you do not understand the metaphysical claims being made). Of course it is easy to not believe in it, but trying to disprove it at most results in a stalemate of logic where the key is simply faith, or lack of faith and the results of either choice are mostly meaningless to the physical world and only have a (theoretical) effect on the afterlife (or not)

Beyond that if you actually look at the other major religions of the world most are actually variants of christianity. Muslims (I'm not joking, it isn't nearly as old as they like to pretend it is); catholics, mormons and many others are all derivative from christianity, written and rewritten to someones personal agenda. Mormons and Muslims in particular like to pretend their history is ancient and ignore the historical evidence of how new they are and how much of it was written while ignoring a very simple instruction from the Bible they are based on which states (and I'm paraphrasing here) Do not add to this.

What does that mean? Pretty much all religions which are vaguely based on christianity can actually be dismantled without even disproving the existance of god or without bashing christianity simply by pointing out that they do not follow their own rules and were written by charlatans with an agenda.

On the contrary disproving christianity (or not believing in it) would also mean you disproved (or do not believe) in all derivative forms that were stemmed from it later

On the side lines to this are philosophy teachings like Buddhism which technically are not religions (a religion worships a god, buddists teach a way of life and not a god to worship; Buddha was a human teacher, not a god). You can be atheist and still follow the teachings and wisdom of Buddha when his philosophy is essentially (and again I'm paraphrasing) "be nice to people and animals" and doesn't go so far as to try and explain how the world was made or tell you a god has to be worshipped.

So where does that leave us? It means in the greater view of abstract metaphysics:

The Bible and Christianity are at their core the simple choice of "have faith or do not have faith"; and despite the ignorant ramblings of people who can not understand it, it does not actually contradict science (though some poorly translated versions like the King James appear to). As it does not (at its core) fundamentally contradict science and uses a juxtaposition of faith to prove why it is itself unprovable, there is no way to prove or disprove its truth aside from choosing not to believe (which even within its own context of faith is considered proof that you have free will and can be used to counter argue). This debate ends in circles where in both sides will end up walking away believing they are correct.

As there is no one in living memory that can track its true origins, even trying to point at those becomes an exercise in archeology.

Here's where it falls apart for everything else:

1. The philosophy types (for example Buddhism) have nothing in them to prove or disprove. They are simply collected works of recommended ways to live clean, healthy and peaceful.

2. All derivative works of Christianity are easily proven false simply by looking at their tenuous connection to the Bible (and the fact they ignore the simple command to not add to it). All religions which forget this simple instruction self destruct under scrutiny because they fail to follow their own rules. So whether or not you believe in the Bible or not you would have to be blind or stupid to follow something like Mormon or Muslim because they were not only created by criminals (which can be proven through archeology and history) but they ignore the very book they were both originally based on which told them not to be doing what they are doing.

3. And finally that leaves us with crap like Scientology. Not only was this created within recent memory, but its entire history is documented and well known (at least to anyone outside the church who has been paying attention for the last 60 years). A fiction writer goes to a bar with friends and makes a bet that he can trick idiots into giving him money by claiming its a religion than rewrites some of his science fiction books as fact. Voila, instant religion for idiots with an obvious and provably false heritage.

So is there really a difference? I guess it depends on how you look at it. I would say the only true religion is Christianity; why? It's the only one that at least within it's own context actually bothers to explain why it's ok for you not to believe in it. Within it's context God basically says "believe in me or don't" this is the essence of faith and the world will continue regardless of your choice. It makes it a pointless debate to argue against as the world will go on whether it is right or wrong and the only effect will be after death (or not). (for those who would argue otherwise, I would counter they are most likely following either an incorrectly transalted version of the Bible, or a derivitive religion like Catholic, mormon or muslim which adds their own words and books even though they were instructed not to by the Bible they claim to follow)

The difference is basically in how easy it is to disprove the rest.

Scientology being the easiest.